Eber is five feet ten inches tall, and in a room built around stout halflings he seems to occupy more space than his body alone should. Olive-green scales overlap his fair, freckled skin in fine, flexible plates, darkest along his shoulders and ribs and paler toward his hands. His vivid red hair, once auburn, falls in untidy waves around pointed ears. Amber eyes with narrow, draconic pupils track people with an unnerving stillness. His jaw is broad and subtly altered; when he speaks or smiles, the green-dragon teeth show, long and pointed, built to grip and tear rather than grind. He moves carefully through family rooms, turning sideways before anyone asks him to make room. Yet when he forgets himself, his long stride and easy strength can make a doorway feel suddenly narrow. The unexpected detail is the delicate, patient way he handles tiny watch springs, holding them between claw tips without crushing them.

Eber is clever, observant, and guarded, but not cold. He can spend an hour alone sorting gears, then linger in a doorway because he wants to hear his family laughing without having to join in. He dislikes being treated as fragile, yet he is quietly grateful when Wilma checks that he has food he can swallow. He resents the distance his new body has placed between him and his parents, but he knows their worry comes from love. When relaxed, he can be dryly funny and unexpectedly patient; when watched, pitied, or teased about eating, he becomes clipped and defensive. With children he is gentler than he is with adults, partly because they ask blunt questions without pretending not to stare. In the workshop he is precise and confident, even when the rest of his life feels unfamiliar. His cleverness can become suspicion: he notices small inconsistencies and sometimes assumes they conceal a threat. He wants the freedom to be solitary without being abandoned, and affection without being managed. His temper is not constant, but when it comes it is direct, especially if someone humiliates Ignatz or treats the younger children as specimens. He is learning that accepting help does not mean surrendering control, a lesson he understands in theory far better than in practice.

Eber was the eighth child of Trogi and Wilma, born into a family whose life revolved around a cramped workshop, a kitchen large enough for a dozen stools, and the gardens and chicken runs Wilma tended behind the house. His parents descended from stout halflings and kept the old village habits alive: work shared according to need, food placed in the middle of the table, and a name spoken aloud when remembering the dead. Trogi, black-haired and green-eyed, was the family’s quiet center, a craftsman who claimed he meant to retire while still reaching for the next tool. Wilma, white-blond and hazel-eyed, was warm, perceptive, and far more capable than she let the noisy workshop guess. They fished together at a nearby stream and worried that their children were inheriting more than scales. Eber grew up the baby, bundled among seven siblings who made the workshop seem like a world with its own weather. Windle, the eldest, was already steady and serious, with a future in management and a small family of his own: Otto and cheerful little Anika. Karl loved gears and tools, though his marriage to Leanora, a sailor descended from famous dragon hunters, was strained by long absences and old family tensions. Their household included Hansel and Ragni, a pale, white-haired child whose unusual coloring made village gossip linger. Yonda, the only sister, was beautiful, kind, and sociable, with five children and an instinct for coaxing Eber out among people. Her sons Hans and Birke had begun to show signs that made the adults exchange worried looks. Alder guarded the town when he remembered to be dependable, but merriment often won; his son, Black Alder, was a high-blooded cousin with amber serpent eyes and green scales. Kasper repaired watches and minded the garden and chickens, content with his small household and daughters Wonda and Ilse. For years Eber’s closest companions were Rodrick and Ignatz. They played in the woods or beside the river, making up contests and exploring places where the adults could not see them. Ignatz was careful and loyal; Rodrick was once kinder than he later remembered himself being. Eber assumed he would grow into an ordinary stout-halfling life: useful hands, a family place at the table, and a body that fit through the familiar doors. Then adolescence came like an illness without a name. His auburn hair turned startling red. His brown eyes became molten amber, his ears sharpened, and olive scales spread over his body. He grew far beyond his parents’ height. The worst change was his jaw. It reshaped painfully over weeks, and chewing became impossible. His new teeth could tear meat and fruit, but food had to be swallowed in pieces. His parents and siblings learned to keep smooth stones ready for him to swallow, as his draconic stomach needed them to grind what he ate. He hated the stones more than he admitted. Each one seemed to announce that the family meal was no longer a meal he could share in the same way. The first weeks were frightening for everyone. Trogi quietly altered benches and doorframes, then pretended the work was ordinary. Wilma searched for foods Eber could swallow safely, keeping a list beside her pantry. She could butcher chickens and fish, but the sight of Eber choking during his first attempts to eat made her go pale. Windle watched with a stoic fear that his own children might undergo the same change. Yonda brought company and encouragement, then gently urged him to be more social, not understanding that attention could feel like another physical burden. Karl tried to solve the problem with tools and recipes. Kasper measured small stones and kept them clean. The family’s care was real, but care could not make Eber feel at home in his own body. One night, not long after Ignatz’s own high-blood changes began, Eber woke to find him sitting beside the kitchen stove, unable to sleep. Ignatz had a new tail and claws, and the shame of an incident in which he had killed a chicken with his bare hands. Eber joined him on the floor. The next night Rodrick came too, pretending he was there because the kitchen was cooler. For a while, the three high-blood brothers slept together in the kitchen, too large for their old beds and too unsettled to admit they were afraid. The room smelled of ashes, flour, and damp wool. They learned to fold themselves around the table legs and wake one another when a nightmare turned into a snarl. Ignatz offered quiet company. Rodrick made jokes, sometimes cruel ones, but learned to stop when Eber’s anger sharpened. The shared nights became a family memory none of them discussed in front of the younger children. Rodrick’s later adolescence brought height, a predator’s build, reddish-tipped green scales, yellow eyes, and sorcerous power. He became blunt and arrogant, insisting he was only being honest. His teasing about Eber’s eating could cut deeply. He did not always understand why Eber shut him out, though he did stop when Eber became truly furious. Ignatz’s own changes were slower: grey-green scales growing more vivid, claws, sharp teeth, and a flexible tail. He withdrew from outdoor pursuits after the chicken incident and stayed close to the workshop. Eber remembered the boy who had once raced him by the river, and still trusts that boy more than Ignatz’s present silences. The village itself is changing. It began as a refuge for survivors who endured drowning, hunger, dangerous woods, and a volcanic eruption before settling near clear springs, fertile soil, and good fishing. Three generations later, the Greenwake Kin number roughly 447. Their timber houses, stone footings, steep roofs, and covered workyards still bear the marks of practical halfling life. Yet high-blooded descendants are now a majority. Some elders see them as a dangerous departure from communal ways; some youths see their strength and draconic heritage as proof that the old bargains made the people stronger. New displays of wealth, stricter gender expectations, and hunting prestige compete with household gratitude and shared meals. The old ritual that changed the families remains poorly understood. Some blame the green dragon whose blood altered them; others suspect one of her daughters or a rite left unfinished. Eber’s own magic appeared in small, unsettling ways: a flicker of green light when he was frightened, a breath that made leaves curl, and a whisper of draconic force that pushed objects across a workbench. Trogi urged him to learn control before the power frightened Wilma. Eber became a second-level sorcerer, studying through experiments, careful notes, and spells practiced alone in a covered yard. His magic has not made him eager to fight. Instead, it gives him a means of protecting a family that already worries about him. He has become quietly fascinated by bright, well-made objects. He collects polished gears, glass beads, brass fittings, and stones that catch the light. He tells himself they are useful; some are. He is also clever and watchful, able to spot which tool has been moved or which visitor has lied about a broken mechanism. Solitude suits him, but it is not the same as wanting to be abandoned. He still misses the warmth of his childhood and resents how much work it takes to fit inside it now. His current problems are practical and political. High-blood children need larger clothes and beds; the family has neither enough room nor money to meet every need. The workshop needs his labor, but Eber fears his strength and magic will make him a spectacle or a weapon. The village’s growing dragon worship alarms him. A secret circle is exploiting the people’s fear and divisions, while a returning green dragon patriarch treats the community as useful pawns. Eber does not know the circle’s full reach, but he has noticed that some visitors ask too many questions about his family’s changes and the old ritual. He wants to protect the workshop and his siblings without becoming the sort of creature who values power above kin. His work with small mechanisms, his observations of the village, and his reluctant magical training may make him one of the few people positioned to notice what the adults are missing.